Yes, the only relevant past time point is ancient egypt. Nothing in between is relevant at all. We went from all being ancient egyptians to suddenly we all have laws and regulations regarding safe transport of people and animals. Laws never change, except when you compare now to ancient egypt that is.

bugontherug:He heard it from a friend who wasn't there and the friend said Mitt went through a carwash to clean the dog.

I'm sorry, but the perception that a candidate doesn't love his pet dog is probably fatal to a presidential campaign. It is now being used against him by his own party in South Carolina, and with good reason. If the Romney campaign found fault with the story, it would have disputed it by now. It's been public at least five years:

Wait. He went through a CAR wash to wash the dog? I thought he used a hose, like you would if you needed to clean an owl.

lennavan:bugontherug: I did not. Though now that you raise the question, it could be because the story said he was emotion free.

Do you believe everything you read on the internet as established truth?

bugontherug: His lack of emotion in dealing with the situation is weirder still.

Was there a lack of emotion?

bugontherug: The story leads me

Funny, in reading the follow-up, that's exactly what the author wanted you to get out of the story. I wonder how that worked out.

bugontherug: Yes. The story is praising Romney highly. So the author's bias is in favor of Romney, not against him. It's only by reading between the lines that the story is a little weird.

This is just completely false. From the author himself - "Seeking to penetrate the stock image of the air-brushed family."

bugontherug: The author's pro-Romney bias, and Romney's lack of protest before now give rise to the inference that the story is credible.

Brutal. Just brutal. Not only are you wrong but you just absolutely know you're right, making it impossible to see how wrong you are. I can't help you man. You've already built a false narrative to help you support your ill conceived conclusions. I cannot argue against the things you've fabricated to support your beliefs.

U gettin' mad bro? U sound mad.

The article speaks glowingly of Romney, and a journalist who wanted to write a positive story could just as easily say his or her aim is to "penetrate the image of the air brushed family," because he or she wants to make the subject seem more human. The article which is the subject of this thread is pro-Romney in tone, trying to characterize him as an effective crisis-manager. You have to read between the lines to see that it suggests an underlying personality disturbance.

Do you believe everything you read on the internet as established truth?

No. You asked why I believed there was a "lack of emotion in the story." I answered the question you asked, not the one you imagine you asked.

Was there a lack of emotion?

The credible evidence says yes. In fact, the story was confirmed by the Romney family, and the version the journalist published is the Romney family's own positive spin.

"For the record, neither Tagg nor any other Romney was my original source for the anecdote. Collins and others have pushed this silly line to suggest how tone-deaf the Romney brood must be. In fact, I went to the then 37-year-old Tagg only after having heard the Seamus story at the very end of a long interview with a close friend of the Romney family. Seeking to penetrate the stock image of the air-brushed family, I had asked that friend what stories the Romneys reminisced about in the privacy of their own home. As soon as the Seamus road trip anecdote passed his lips, I knew it was a gem. But I was determined to avoid a situation where Romney's handlers could call into question the anecdote - or the entire article - because I had gotten some small detail wrong. So I insisted that Tagg poll his mother and brothers and persisted until I had confirmed every last fact. Far from being tone-deaf, Tagg realized as I dug deeper that the story could cause his father grief. Yet Tagg's participation actually helped his dad. After all, the first version of the story I'd heard from the family friend - who hadn't been an eyewitness - improbably had Mitt driving the station wagon right through a carwash. Imagine the howls from PETA if Seamus had been introduced to the world with the image of high-pressure wraparound brushes pummeling a defenseless, diarrheal dog."

Brutal. Just brutal. Not only are you wrong but you just absolutely know you're right, making it impossible to see how wrong you are. I can't help you man. You've already built a false narrative to help you support your ill conceived conclusions. I cannot argue against the things you've fabricated to support your beliefs.

It's good to see that your argument is so strong that you've decided to focus your attack on me. I am right, because all the objective evidence shows that this story was pro-Romney spin of an ugly event revealing more about the man's capacity for empathy than the family wanted revealed. That you are the kind of shady person who, when shown to be wrong, sinks to personal attacks in place of syllogisms does nothing to strengthen or undermine that case.

Satanic_Hamster:bugontherug: He heard it from a friend who wasn't there and the friend said Mitt went through a carwash to clean the dog.

I'm sorry, but the perception that a candidate doesn't love his pet dog is probably fatal to a presidential campaign. It is now being used against him by his own party in South Carolina, and with good reason. If the Romney campaign found fault with the story, it would have disputed it by now. It's been public at least five years:

Wait. He went through a CAR wash to wash the dog? I thought he used a hose, like you would if you needed to clean an owl

The exaggerated story says he went through a car wash. The Romney family's own story says he hosed the dog off.

Yes, the only relevant past time point is ancient egypt. Nothing in between is relevant at all. We went from all being ancient egyptians to suddenly we all have laws and regulations regarding safe transport of people and animals. Laws never change, except when you compare now to ancient egypt that is.

You're absolutely right. I'm sure back in the golden days of 1983, in Massachusets, it was all the rage to strap your dog's crate to the roof of your station wagon, throw him in, and drive up and down the interstate. They probably had clubs. Life was much simpler back then.

skullkrusher:coeyagi: He didn't say what the thread was about, he just said they were discussing Mitt the Mexican, leaving out the part that we discussed the label "hispanic" but not saying anything about him being Mexican.

I am sorry you are too much of a coward to admit you're wrong.

No one called Mitt a Mexican though. That's not what was it was about. I am sorry that you don't understand things good.

Facepalm. He was born in Mexico. It doesn't matter if he was called that or not. Jesus, you can admit anytime now, sweetheart.

coeyagi:skullkrusher: coeyagi: He didn't say what the thread was about, he just said they were discussing Mitt the Mexican, leaving out the part that we discussed the label "hispanic" but not saying anything about him being Mexican.

I am sorry you are too much of a coward to admit you're wrong.

No one called Mitt a Mexican though. That's not what was it was about. I am sorry that you don't understand things good.

Facepalm. He was born in Mexico. It doesn't matter if he was called that or not. Jesus, you can admit anytime now, sweetheart.

lennavan: Putting the dog up there in the first place may have been stupid. Hosing the dog off was actually a nice thing to do.

Except now the dog is wet, which means its going to be freezing.

I could almost buy Mitt's argument that the dog loved being in the carrier, and accept that the dog didn't shiat itself out of fear but rather because it had to go really bad. But even if I accept those possibilities, this story still makes Mitt look like a total ass:

First, he knew the trip would be twelve hours and apparently made no provision for bathroom breaks for the dog. That's ridiculous. I've taken my dog on long road trips where we spent twelve to twenty hours on the road each day. I scheduled regular stops (every three to four hours) to let the dog out to use the bathroom and spend twenty minutes playing fetch so she could stretch her legs. My dog has never crapped inside my car.

Second, once the dog had crapped itself Mitt should have been able to recognize the dog was in distress. But let's be generous and assume the dog wasn't actually in any serious discomfort and readily agree to get back in the crate. Romney still put a wet dog in a box on top of a car and then drove for several more hours (which means he's driving into the evening) in a Northern state and then in Canada, which means that even if it was summer it would still be fairly cold. The wind chill alone is going to be very high, since he is presumably driving between 55 and 75 mph.

These are facts that remain true even if we take Mitt completely at his word and assume the best possibilities. He's still a guy who would make no plans for his dog's bathroom business on a twelve hour drive, and he's still a guy who would put a wet dog on top of a car on a long drive into Canada.

/Also, unless the dog had some sort of general incontinence issue or wasn't allowed to defecate for many hours before being put in the crate, it should have been able to hold it for twelve hours. A dog the size on an Irish Setter should be able to hold it for about 24 hours if properly crate-trained. One shouldn't force a dog to hold it that long, but the dog should be able to handle it. For that reason, and the liquid nature of its defecation, I strongly suspect that Seamus shiat himself in terror.

well, that's incredibly sad. I entertain myself by spending time in the company of friends, reading books, going to movies, things like that.

I know you try to paint yourself as some sort of dispassionate independent, but it's hard not to think of you as a staunch republican when, like many others on the right, you derive pleasure from pissing off "the libs".

coeyagi:coeyagi: skullkrusher: coeyagi: He didn't say what the thread was about, he just said they were discussing Mitt the Mexican, leaving out the part that we discussed the label "hispanic" but not saying anything about him being Mexican.

I am sorry you are too much of a coward to admit you're wrong.

No one called Mitt a Mexican though. That's not what was it was about. I am sorry that you don't understand things good.

Facepalm. He was born in Mexico. It doesn't matter if he was called that or not. Jesus, you can admit anytime now, sweetheart.

Sorry, I meant to say he was descended from Mexicans.

nah, again, that imputes something which wasn't there. No Mexican heritage as that would imply a racial aspect to it which clearly doesn't exist and wasn't argued. Sorry but I am not going to "admit" anything because you're not clever enough to grasp the difference

History's Greatest Monster:I know you try to paint yourself as some sort of dispassionate independent, but it's hard not to think of you as a staunch republican when, like many others on the right, you derive pleasure from pissing off "the libs".

I do enjoy pissing off the self-righteous and arrogant on the left, that's for sure. There's also no denying I am a "conservative" as the word is often clumsily used. A conservative who favors the legalization of drugs, recognition of gay marriage, safe and legal abortion, tolerance, a sensible and functional safety net, a far more diplomatic approach to foreign policy than we've often shown, an honest and fair treatment of Israel AND Palestinians... that is to say, not what you would call a "Republican" or "conservative" at all.

lennavan:It seems you all would prefer to have a president making decisions based on emotions rather than facts and logic. It's farking scary. You all promised not to forget the lessons of 9/11. Wasn't one lesson we should probably relax and cool the fark off before engaging in major military conflicts? You want our next president to make that decision while upset?

Ridiculous.

Logic has to be guided by compassion. You can't be logical in a vacuum, that has terrifying consequences. A politician who acts logically but without any compassion is a very, very dangerous thing.

Consider the OWS protests. Clearly the protests cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely or be allowed to become to disruptive of the daily business of an urban metropolis. The protestors must be made to disperse.

A person acting from compassion and logic would attempt to understand the needs of the protestors, address those needs in a way that was to the maximum benefit of all involved, and allow the protests to disperse naturally. A person acting from logic alone, without any compassion for others, might decide to simply send soldiers into the square and start shooting protestors until they flee and disperse.

The hard reality is that there is no logical reason to treat other human beings with dignity if you have the power to suppress their protestations. This is why it has taken centuries to become as socially progressive as we are: Those who have the power to simply destroy resistance to their selfish pursuit of more power have no logical reason to not exercise that power. It is often not in the immediate self-interest of a person to consider the needs and desires of others.

You're right that people should favor logic over raw emotions like anger, lust, jealousy, and fear. But its a serious mistake to think that just because one shouldn't make rash decision based on raw emotion, that therefore one should make decisions with no regard to emotions and passions at all.

The difference between being clever and being enlightened is recognizing that logic without compassion is meaningless.

And doesn't this guy come off as the most patronizing mothefncker of all time? At his rallies he turns his whole body and takes baby steps(seriously, just watch him) like he's addressing first graders and Alzheimer's cases. "Oh, gosh and golly, I can't believe I have to talk to you idiots! Just give me the nom, you fncking morons!"

Nina_Hartley's_Ass:And doesn't this guy come off as the most patronizing mothefncker of all time? At his rallies he turns his whole body and takes baby steps(seriously, just watch him) like he's addressing first graders and Alzheimer's cases. "Oh, gosh and golly, I can't believe I have to talk to you idiots! Just give me the nom, you fncking morons!"

Yeah, but he speaks honestly. I saw him on the TV and he kind of spontaneously broke into "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain." It was a somber, from the heart moment. A single tear rolled down my cheek.

lennavan:CPennypacker: skullkrusher: CPennypacker: lennavan: It isnt often but I gotta disagree with Maddow on this one. Yeah, actually I do want a cold emotionless president making decisions, not someone who is going to make a stupid decision because he's following his/her emotions....snip...I said it was reasonable. My wife's cat hates the car carrier, first time in he peed himself, presumably in terror. Should I stop taking the cat to the vet? The cat does not love the carrier and I thought using the carrier anyway was a reasonable thing to do. But apparently you are the authority figure here and if the animal doesn't absolutely love it, it must be wrong or something.

Threadjack alert...You might want to clean out the peed-in carrier and use a product called Feliway in it. It has a calming influence.

Trying to stuff an already-scared cat into a carrier that smells of scared-outa-them pee* is a thankless, frustrating, loud and bloody task...

sprawl15:Nina_Hartley's_Ass: And doesn't this guy come off as the most patronizing mothefncker of all time? At his rallies he turns his whole body and takes baby steps(seriously, just watch him) like he's addressing first graders and Alzheimer's cases. "Oh, gosh and golly, I can't believe I have to talk to you idiots! Just give me the nom, you fncking morons!"

Yeah, but he speaks honestly. I saw him on the TV and he kind of spontaneously broke into "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain." It was a somber, from the heart moment. A single tear rolled down my cheek.

Sergeant Grumbles:It's your pet. If you don't treat it like family, then you shouldn't have a pet.

BULL!!!

Your pet is not family. It is the pet. It is not and never will be a person. They are not family.

I don't care about the dog crapping itself. Hose the bastard off and stick him back in the crate -- the sooner you get to your destination the sooner your dog can go forget the whole ordeal ever happened and feast on horse poop.

Its not like you waterboarded the dog -- 8 hours in a crate doesn't sound to different from a cross pacific flight...

My sisters dog throws up constantly when she takes the 5 hour drive home for the holidays. Regardless of whether its loose or in a crate. Does it mean she shouldnt move the dog with her for extended stays?

Dogs dont like to travel. Im not going to stop my life or let the animal die because it doesnt like it. Animals are going to suffer a bit in their lives at some point. Humans tell each other that sucking it up and putting up with shiat is part of life.

mikefinch:Sergeant Grumbles: It's your pet. If you don't treat it like family, then you shouldn't have a pet.

BULL!!!

Your pet is not family. It is the pet. It is not and never will be a person. They are not family.

I don't care about the dog crapping itself. Hose the bastard off and stick him back in the crate -- the sooner you get to your destination the sooner your dog can go forget the whole ordeal ever happened and feast on horse poop.

Its not like you waterboarded the dog -- 8 hours in a crate doesn't sound to different from a cross pacific flight...

My sisters dog throws up constantly when she takes the 5 hour drive home for the holidays. Regardless of whether its loose or in a crate. Does it mean she shouldnt move the dog with her for extended stays?

Dogs dont like to travel. Im not going to stop my life or let the animal die because it doesnt like it. Animals are going to suffer a bit in their lives at some point. Humans tell each other that sucking it up and putting up with shiat is part of life.

How about if I put you in a box, tie you up on a car, and get on the freeway for 8 hours? And when you shiat yourself, I take you out, hose you down, throw you back in, and put you back up there?

Does that sound like an enjoyable experience to you? Or even something you should just "put up with"?

Does that sound like something that any person with an ounce of empathy would do to anyone or anything they cared about?

See now that's just inaccurate.It should beRomney: v. To make someone else defecate in fear. "Last Halloween, I volunteered at a haunted house as one of the ghouls. The best part was when I Romneyed an entire school bus worth of kids at once."

skepticultist:Except now the dog is wet, which means its going to be freezing.

Wow, you just made an awful lot of assumptions here. So some journalist wrote some non-story based on something a friend heard 24 years ago and not only did you not bother to even stick to that story, you made up your own details.

Farking Romney, always being a bad person in your imaginary tales, what's up with him?

skepticultist:A politician who acts logically but without any compassion is a very, very dangerous thing.

I agree and yet I would have much rather had Romney than Bush on 9/12. Bush acted out of fear and anger, I'd rather have the cold calculated response instead.

CPennypacker:You're absolutely right. I'm sure back in the golden days of 1983, in Massachusets, it was all the rage to strap your dog's crate to the roof of your station wagon, throw him in, and drive up and down the interstate. They probably had clubs. Life was much simpler back then.

In the early 1980s it was legal to have your kid sit wherever you like in the car without a seat belt. Yeah, it was much simpler back then. You wouldn't know, you're what, 16? But you're probably right, sure you can have your 2 year old sit up front in mom's lap or hell, all by themselves but a dog in a carrier strapped safely to the roof? That's nuts!

bugontherug:I am right, because all the objective evidence shows that this story was pro-Romney

Yes, the author himself admitted he went into it digging for dirt and when he published it knew and assumed people would be appalled and for those reasons this was pro-Romney. A well thought out analysis.

By itself the story isn't much but add it to all the warmth Mr. Personality exudes and it just completes the portrait. Hope the conservatives decide to back Gingrich and turn this into a long bloody battle.

HeartBurnKid:How about if I put you in a box, tie you up on a car, and get on the freeway for 8 hours? And when you shiat yourself, I take you out, hose you down, throw you back in, and put you back up there?

Does that sound like an enjoyable experience to you? Or even something you should just "put up with"?

Does that sound like something that any person with an ounce of empathy would do to anyone or anything they cared about?

Yeah -- that doesn't sound enjoyable. But is it a life destroying experience? No. Its a bad freaking day. Granted its a very bad freaking day but its not going to consume my life. And dogs dont need to be given the level of dignity we afford fellow humans. They are dogs.

Im just saying - he doesn't exactly seem like the king of animal cruelty here.

Sergeant Grumbles:mikefinch: Your pet is not family. It is the pet. It is not and never will be a person. They are not family.

lennavan:bugontherug: I am right, because all the objective evidence shows that this story was pro-Romney

Yes, the author himself admitted he went into it digging for dirt and when he published it knew and assumed people would be appalled and for those reasons this was pro-Romney. A well thought out analysis.

That would be good, if only any of it were true. In the link I posted, the author admits her efforts helped Romney. Her story cleared up some of the worst misconceptions about the incident--like the idea that Romney put the dog through a car wash. Also, her story wasn't just verified by a first hand witness, her story also recounts that witness's own positive spin on the incident. What this story tells is the Romney family's own positive spin. It's no wonder then that they've not seen fit to dispute the story. It's their own story.

bugontherug:That would be good, if only any of it were true. In the link I posted, the author admits her efforts helped Romney. Her story cleared up some of the worst misconceptions about the incident--like the idea that Romney put the dog through a car wash. Also, her story wasn't just verified by a first hand witness, her story also recounts that witness's own positive spin on the incident. What this story tells is the Romney family's own positive spin. It's no wonder then that they've not seen fit to dispute the story. It's their own story.